3. Less competition: because fewer advertisers using Bing ads, there’s more opportunity for cheaper impressions and lower CPCs.

4.Easy to get started: Bing has made a seamless process for transferring over Google Ads data and launching your Bing account. Google advertisers will feel very familiar to with Bing’s Merchant Center.

2. How To Set Up Bing Ads

Setting up your Bing ads Ads account is quick and painless, here’s how you can get started.

Step 1: Sign Up For Your Bing Ads Account

If you don’t already have a Microsoft account, you’ll need to create one.

Step 2: Import Campaign From Google Ads Or Create A New One

Once you’ve created your account, you have the choice of creating a new campaign or importing a campaign from Google Ads.

If you want to get up and running right away, then you can import from Google Ads and the campaign settings should populate automatically.

If you choose to create your own campaign, you’ll need to fill out some basic settings.

You’ve just created your first Bing ads campaign — it’s really that easy.

However, keep in mind that not all information can be imported into Bing.

The following information will have to be recreated within the Bing platform:

Automated rules

Negative keywords libraries

Age and gender target

Ad-group-level extensions

Extensions

Remarketing lists and associations

IP exclusions

3. Bing Ads Best Practices

Leverage Dynamic Search Ads For Upper Funnel Visibility

Dynamic Search Ads (DSAs) are similar to text ads yet require less workload because they allow Bing’s machine learning to do much of the work for you, giving you more time focus on other parts of your business.

DSAs allow you to target relevant searches based on your website content, with each ad customized for search query relevancy. These ads don’t require keywords or bids, they will automatically update according to your website.

These are especially useful for advertisers just starting out or for those who have a large catalog and little bandwidth to create text ads for each product page.

Target In-market Audiences

Adding in this targeting for high-intent shoppers is key for driving conversions for your Bing Ads campaigns.

“Bing’s in-market audiences are effective and unique in that they can be leveraged for both Search and Shopping,” says Brisco.

“You’ll find that some in-market audiences that might not be as intuitive as top performers actually perform very well. Make sure to use the bid-only setting.”

Layer In Remarketing & Track Conversions With UET Tag

Targeting people that have previously been to your site, past purchasers, or audiences that have interacted with your business in one form or another is a powerful opportunity for driving lower funnel conversions and repeat purchases.

These are your most valuable audiences, and you’ll want to engage them using Bing’s remarketing lists.

Once you’ve created your remarketing lists, you’ll want to make sure you associate these audiences to your campaigns and adjust your bids accordingly.

Another best practice for supporting your Bing remarketing initiatives is to be sure that you are making full use of the Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag for tracking conversions and actions completed on your website.

Make sure you have your UET across the entire site because the conversion pixel doubles as a remarketing pixel.

Showing your product offering not only makes your ad more relevant, but it also has the power to funnel the searcher directly to your store and product page.

“It’s especially helpful for broader searches where your ads and final URL are likely to be more category focused. You can dynamically feature product info in the extensions and draw attention to your product selection and competitive pricing.”

-Caroline Rice, Retail Search Manager at CPC Strategy

Bing ADPE use information from your product feed to dynamically feature product extensions when appropriate. This information is found in Bing Merchant Center.

Automated Extensions work much like Google’s in that they extend the visibility and information of your ad.

These extensions pull data from your:

Product feeds

Existing ads

Domain pages

These extensions automatically display when activated and determined to improve your ad’s performance.

Check Your Quality Score

Just like Google’s Ad Quality Score, Bing ads also has its own Quality Score that evaluates the “quality” of your ads and can impact your cost-per-clicks (CPCs).

The Bing Quality Score is a measure from 1-10 “how competitive” your ads are in any given auction.

Quality Score

Description

1-5

The keyword is underperforming in the marketplace – so your ads are less likely to appear on the Bing Network when that keyword is matched. If one or more of the three components of quality score are Below Average, most likely your score will be 5 or below. If you want to improve your quality score, you need to make changes to improve the poor performing component.

6

The keyword is competitive – but no better than average compared to other keywords targeting the same traffic. If all three components are Average, or a combination of Average and Above Average, most likely your score will be 6 or higher. If you want to improve your quality score, you need to make changes to get all three components to Above Average.

7-10

The keyword is very competitive in the marketplace, and its CTR is higher than the average CTR of keywords targeting the same traffic. If all three components are Above Average, most likely your score will be 7 or above.

This score is broadly based on three factors:

Ad relevance

Expected clickthrough rate

Landing page experience

Because Quality Score can impact the ranking and pricing of your Bing ads, you’ll want to keep them above average (7+) to ensure your ads are as competitive as possible to secure the best position.

Know What Keywords To Target

Knowing the keywords that your target audience is using to search and explore on Bing is critical for campaign performance.

If your keyword targeting isn’t optimized, then you’ll want to do some keyword research to identify and then target the types of keywords that will maximize the clicks and conversions for your Bing text ads.

About the AuthorGreg graduated from CSU Sacramento with a degree in International Relations. After teaching English in Istanbul, he returned to California to pursue writing about tech and digital marketing. See all posts by this author here.

About CPC Strategy | Elite SEM

CPC Strategy is now part of Elite SEM, a performance-driven digital marketing agency. Learn more.